A Complex ‘Portrait’ : An Unconventional 60-year Marriage Survives England--but not U.S. Cuts

The title is generic, the content anything but. The marriage in question, between novelist Vita Sackville-West and diplomat Harold Nicolson, was a loving till-death-us-do-part union that produced two children.

She was a lesbian and he was a homosexual.

“Vita’s love for Harold was the central relationship in her life,” says Janet McTeer, who plays Sackville-West in the three-part “Portrait of a Marriage,” premiering Sunday on PBS.

“Vita had countless affairs with women. She was quite volatile, quite charismatic, never boring for one instant. Yet she needed security and Harold provided that. She said, ‘I could never love anyone apart from Harold.’ ”

The BBC-made film dissects the defining episode in the Nicolsons’ 60-year marriage, when Vita became aware of her true sexuality. The book on which the miniseries is based, written by the Nicolsons’ son Nigel, covers their entire life together, but the production concentrates on Vita’s bold and tempestuous affair, from 1918 to 1921, with Violet Trefusis (played by Cathryn Harrison).

As McTeer describes the Nicolsons’ marriage, “Vita and Harold were each other’s best friend. They weren’t sexual partners after their first years together. Both had their love affairs outside the marriage. For its time, their marriage was incredibly unconventional, and it still is.”

So much so, in fact, that American viewers will be seeing a censored version of the original four-hour film. In offering the production to PBS affiliates via the Mobil-backed “Masterpiece Theatre,” WGBH in Boston cut about a half-hour “to move the drama along,” the station says.

The trimmed scenes include the depiction of a young Vita dressing as a man and climbing into bed, fully clothed, with Violet. Additionally, PBS stations have the option to air the program with a further two minutes removed that show partial nudity and a rape scene. This is the nudity-free “family version,” a PBS spokesperson says.

Locally, KCET and KPBS plan to air the new PBS “Portrait” in full; KOCE and KVCR will air the trimmed, nudity-free version.

McTeer, a 6-foot-1 figure of a woman who is no shrinking violet, blasts the idea of censorship. “I’m all for keeping the film exactly as it is. There’s nothing explicit in it, nothing offensive. I haven’t seen the cuts. If I did I would scream. All the scenes are in it for a reason. To cut it by half an hour, so that it goes from action to action, is to impair the psychological development of the drama.

“That’s ludicrous enough, but then to cut a further several minutes because it’s ‘offensive’ is itself offensive. There’s nothing offensive, unless you take offense at the idea of two women having a sexual relationship. There is infinitely more offense to be taken at scenes of men raping women or people killing each other.

“Those things are perfectly acceptable to depict, yet it’s not acceptable to depict two women loving each other. I actually find that shocking.”

McTeer, thirtyish, was seen by PBS audiences in “Precious Bane” several years ago and has a supporting part in the upcoming Paramount remake of “Wuthering Heights.” Her height and outspokenness make her “very good at playing strong women,” she says. “I’m no wallflower. I’m not your ingenue type. I’m not your heroine who gets battered about and saved by a jolly handsome man with biceps.”

She describes herself as “bolshie,” an English expression derived from “Bolshevik” and meaning “a handful.” “I’m bolshie in that I have a lot of courage. I’m quite willing to take on a heavy, fabby challenge like Vita. Throwing myself into a role like that is my idea of heaven.”

McTeer was born in York, an industrial city in northern England. “I was all set for university when I got it in my head that I wanted to be an actress. Everyone thought I was potty.

“I was a tall, skinny, anxious teen-ager. I hung around the theater in York, going to the performances and eventually selling coffees in the intervals. Theater people seemed to be the most interesting people I’d ever seen.”

McTeer was natural casting for the tall and gawky Sackville-West. Long before the film was planned, she had read everything Vita wrote and also the works of other feminist writers of the era, including Virginia Woolf. (Woolf and Sackville-West had a brief affair in the mid-1920s.)

“When I heard they were doing ‘Portrait,’ I was in there quick,” McTeer says. “Vita was an uncompromising spirit, and I wanted to inhabit her boots and her soul. Her life wasn’t an easy one. I feel rather cross with women nowadays who say they’re not feminist because it’s not feminine. They take for granted the rights feminists won for us, the vote for example.

“Reading Vita’s books made me look at my own courage, to see where I was compromising in my own life for the sake of convention. I think everything needs to be questioned.”

“Portrait of a Marriage” airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on KCET, KPBS and KVCR and Tuesday at 10 p.m. on KOCE.